


Duyên

by Ariejul



Series: Alone in the Fallout [23]
Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Betrayal, Deacon POV, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Minor Character Death, Pre-Romantic Relationship, Sadness, Spoilers for Railroad Ending, Suicide Notes, Survivor Guilt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-12-08 15:22:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11649342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ariejul/pseuds/Ariejul
Summary: Duyên: a predestined affinity; the force that binds two people together as friends or lovers in the future.Deacon didn't expect this, and he doesn't know how to fix it. But he wants to.Deacon PoV.Post-game, just after the Fall of the Institute.





	Duyên

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys.
> 
> This just sort of sparked after I came across this particular scene in game. I'm not a big fan of rehashing things that actually happen in game, mainly because it can start to feel a little old hat, but I wanted to write Julia's reaction to what happened here.
> 
> I also wanted to play around with Deacon's feelings for her pre-romance, so here we are.
> 
> Hope you enjoy.
> 
> Comments/kudos are appreciated as always. :)

Deacon knows the second they walk into HQ something is wrong. Dez pulls Charmer aside with hooded eyes, whispering something Deacon can’t quite hear. Passing a note to his partner, the Railroad Conductor Alpha walks away, back into the room proper.

There, on a gurney, lies a body of a boy dressed in the clinical garb of the Institute. Deacon doesn’t have to hear Dez’s words to know who it is.

Patriot.

Dead at their feet.

Charmer’s hands shake as she walks forward, her eyes never once leaving the teenager’s face. The note is griped loosely in her fingers; Deacon slips it away from prying eyes and into his pocket before she can drop it. She shivers, pain flickering like a gruesome pantomime behind her eyes. She flinches when Dez is done, wobbling toward the body with knees that look little more steady than jelly.

Deacon, ever her shadow, is one step behind. He doesn’t touch her, isn’t comfortable doing so, but he can be here, if she needs him. A guardian to keep her safe from the world at her weakest. It's what he's always done. Will _always_ do, if he has any say.

He suddenly can’t remember if he ever knew the boy’s name.

Fingers trembling, Charmer runs her hand through the boy’s flaxen hair. Everyone else has moved on, tactfully avoiding them. The ones that aren’t, well, a sharp gaze their way is more than enough deterrent. Charmer’s grief isn’t a freak show on display for their entertainment.

“ _I’m so sorry,_ ” she whispers, continuing her ministrations. “I never wanted this. I wish –”

She exhales roughly before her mouth snaps closed, and Deacon wishes there was something he could do. He’s never had a better friend than her, could never have _hoped_ to, and seeing her on the verge of tears causes his chest to ache in a way it hasn’t for someone else in years. It’s like Ticon, all over again.

Only this time, she has the presence of mind not to fall to absolute pieces. Her ability to finally hide even a modicum of emotion should make Deacon proud.

It doesn’t.

As glad as he is to be by her side, he suddenly regrets his eagerness to recruit her. Joining the Railroad has been nothing but a lesson in agony, and he wishes acutely it was one she didn’t have to learn. He wishes the Commonwealth didn’t have to destroy her like everyone else, that he could shelter her from that particular pain. The absurdness of that thought isn’t lost on him.

Swiping at her eyes, Charmer shuts down and does a one-eighty, ignoring Drummer Boy’s request for her presence, ignoring everything but the path to the door. Deacon notices the line of her shoulders tremble, the unsteadiness of her gait, the curl of her hands into fists.

He, like always, is a shadow’s step behind her.

The moment the door shuts after him, she’s in his arms wailing. Deacon freezes, his entire being on shutdown from the unexpected contact, but he doesn’t shove her away. Charmer is falling apart before his eyes; she needs him. If a little discomfort is the price to be paid for her friendship, he’ll gladly do so.

Even so, Deacon doesn’t know how to comfort. He’s honestly terrible at it, filling awkward silences like these with stupid jokes, but he can’t do that now. He can’t make light of this. Swallowing heavily, Deacon closes his eyes and _pretends_.

Pretends that Charmer is his Barbara, waking from a bad dream. Pretends as he wraps his arms around her and runs a hand through her hair. Pretends as her hands fist in his shirtfront, ugly sobs ripping from her throat that he can make it all okay with a few gently spoken words.

Charmer is soft in his arms, a fact that strikes him as plainly ridiculous. A part of him expected that softness of the prewar girl to have been eroded by the Waste’s harsh discipline, forcing her body along that same hardened path as her mind. It's nearly comforting, to realize some things never change. That not everything about her will be rotted away to squalor. 

He always felt there was something wrong with that. 

She doesn’t speak, whatever words coming from her mouth little more than a garbled mess. He squeezes her out of reflex, and that just makes her sob harder. By the time she’s finally spent, Deacon himself feels little more than a trembling mess, but he hides it well enough.

“Sorry,” she murmurs, swiping uselessly at the wet spot staining his shirt, but he doesn’t mind.

He’s far more worried about that horrible emptiness clawing just behind her eyes, and the fact that he can’t do a damned thing about it. He grins. “No sweat, Charmer. I got your back.”

She returns the gesture brokenly. “I’m glad.”

 

It isn’t until later, when Charmer is tucked away in her sleeping bag from exhaustion, that Deacon pulls the note from his pocket. It only takes a moment to realize what he has in his hands. A suicide letter. The final words of one, Liam Binet, betrayed. His insides twist with each scathing word on the page, each jab he knows cut Charmer deeper than any knife ever could.

The lies. The deceit. Charmer hated it all. He _knew_ she did. Could see it in the tone of her voice, the tilt of her head, the twist of her lips. She despised it, but she still did it. She still saved the Synths and betrayed her own child in the process.

All because the Railroad asked her.

Deacon closes his eyes and leans back against the tree trunk behind him. The rough bark bites into his skin as he wads the note up and tosses it in the fire. The light of it dances across the reflection in the dark lens of the sunglasses folded at his feet, and he watches with morbid fascination as those words are scorched from existence.

He should probably feel sad, for the destruction of a little boy who only wanted to help, but he doesn’t. He can’t. Because that would mean acknowledging all the death they brought upon people, and not just some faceless Boogeyman. Deacon doesn’t ever want to face that truth.

He watches Charmer toss and turn across the fire, sweat dotting her brow as she struggles through whatever nightmare she’s facing. He thinks of that slip of paper he gave her so long ago, his supposed recall code scrawled across it.

_You can’t trust everyone._

It’s not a lesson everyone can handle learning, and it’s one he sorely wishes no one had to.

Glancing up at the sky and all the stars twinkling forever out of reach, Deacon muses that maybe she didn’t learn that one quite as well as he thought. If she had, she’d never allow a snake in the grass monster like him to follow her like he does.

As his partner fights her demons in silent agony, Deacon sighs and feels regret.


End file.
